A Fifth Season is a place of pause to grieve the death of my first and only child. A season characterized by reflection on the big stuff and the little stuff that this mom encounters as I parent the memory of my child, and my child, in loving return, parents my heart.

What is "A Fifth Season"?

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Rushing Grief

I've been in a place of reflection today about this journey. In the beginning, I had the natural desire to rush and hurry through the hurt. When the pain you feel strikes your soul and leaves you breathless because you fear another breath will kill you, you know you've been giving more than you can handle. So, you handle it with denial, magical thinking, wailing, and the like.

But, there is no rushing grief. You have to pay attention. You have to work. And much of that work is denial, so you can catch your breath and so your body can catch up to your mind that knows she's dead. And magical thinking that some how the nurses will bring her back and lay her in your arms--and it never happened, so you can hope and feel that anticipation of holding your child again. And wailing, you must allow yourself to feel the bad this feels. I truly believe that.

I had a doctor suggest that I accept a prescription for "the depression." "You don't have to feel this bad." Well, I disagree. I think I did and I think I do. I have a right to feel how I feel and I'm convinced that I had to feel the full weight of Caitlin's death in my life, because that was and is the only way I'll know for sure that I am weaving her life and death into my own. I had to honor and acknowledge everything connected to my daughter--the joy she gave me and the pain of losing her--it's all love and I'm not giving any of that up by numbing it with a pill.

I feel the weight of her death now, but I'm stronger. I hold it with more tenderness.

Lately friends have been commenting about how much better I look and sound and seem. And the word they use is "better," I'm grateful, I haven't heard the dreaded "you seem to be over it" that other bereaved mothers sometimes hear. And it's true, I am doing better. I'm stronger to carry my grief. I've lost 30 pounds. I smile more readily and I laugh louder than I did before.

A woman remarked to me the other day, "I saw your son's name in the program at school." I replied with surprising ease, "no, that's not possible. I don't have a son. The only child I have lives in heaven." "Oh, I thought I saw your name," and she continues to talk. But, I'm not listening, I'm thinking about how natural that was to share that I have a child. And to share that she is dead.

That's important to me because that natural response was a sign that not rushing grief has helped me transform an otherwise debilitating exchange into one where Caitlin and her mother were a normal part of a conversation as any other subject would be.

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Live the Questions Now

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now....—Rainer Maria Rilke

Pure Silence (Rumi)

I have come this timeto burn my thorns,to purify my life,to take up service againin the garden

I come weeping to these watersto rise free of passion and belief

Look at my face. These tearsare traces of you.

From "Thoughts Matter"

When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest.I know I am in a hallowed stream,where many have gone before.I am not alone, crazy or having a nervous breakdown.My heart is at work.My soul is awake.

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Words of Comfort & Hope

"See I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared." (Exodus 23:20)

~Marcel Proust

There is no more ridiculous custom than the one that makes you express sympathy once and for all on a given day to a person whose sorrow will endure as long as his life. Such grief, felt in such a way is always present; it is never too late to talk about it, never repetitious to mention it again.